Point taken! (I get your quote from a ‘Fistful of Dollars’). This is coincidental because I had just been wondering when I was going to get around to doing some posts on Clint/Dollars and the Spaghetti Westerns. Sometime in the future. It’s obvious that Clint wasn’t an overnight sensation as many people think.
And Thanks for your humorous comment.

Up until all 3 of the “Man With No Name” films were shown in the U.S. in 1967, Clint Eastwood couldn’t get a job in Hollywood, nor could Lee Van Cleef, for that matter. The only star of the trilogy who could at that time was Eli Wallach. The studio heads reasoned that the public wouldn’t pay to see Eastwood in a movie when they could see him on TV for free! Of course, afterward, Eastwood became a bankable Hollywood star finally. Van Cleef decided to stay in Europe where he became a star of Westerns there. Wallach continued to do what Wallach had always done, his status remaining unchanged.

Clint must have felt like a bum with his last nickel. I’m certain he couldn’t have had any inclining those movies would lead a Western phenomenon and Stardom. Likewise Lee had been around for quite a while, only scoring bit parts – and was strongly considering giving up on the Acting profession. Some Actors – Bronson – sneered at Spaghetti Westerns initially – turning down offers. Eli was already solid.
I still wonder if Leone is really appreciated for his work? He was really good.
This whole thing was fueled by a Europeon audience’ love of Westerns and might well have been sustained by that market alone. ?? Doubt we’ll see anything like that again.

I think Leone is certainly more appreciated for his work now, but still not enough. I have heard it said that spaghetti Westerns killed the Western in America. Others say they reinvigorated the genre. I say it was the latter. By that time, the Western was dying, with an occasional John Wayne movie hitting the theaters, but he was aging, and the Western just wasn’t what it used to be.

Some American-made Westerns of the time were inferior in quality, one being MacKenna’s Gold, and I say that even though Eli Wallach, my main man, is in it. Some might disagree with my opinion about MG, however. Leone’s Westerns were superior to most American-made fare at the time, in my humble opinion. Eastwood acknowledged his debt to Leone, as he should have!